i had my luckiest pull ever today and scored a boros reckoner along with a foil Duskmantle Seer. when i checked the price of seer i was shocked to see he was about $4.50 regular and $14.00 foil (at the cheapest). Is there a strategy i'm not seeing here that makes his effect good? i don't like the fact that he gives my opponent a card on my upkeep (at the cost of life).

Some of the answers here have been questionable so hopefully I can do a better job. Right now duskmantle seer is almost at junk rare value. The thing keeping him above the $2 that junk mythics sit at is the potential it has as an amazing card and a future $30 card. For perspective, when Bob (dark confidant) first came out everyone thought it was awful, it was not played until a few years down the line when cards and a format could support its powerful ability. The same can happen with duskmantle seer. Currently standard and modern don't need this extremely powerful effect but as soon as it does this card will skyrocket. People are paying "so much" for this card in hopes that it finds a home and becomes a staple card in a deck somewhere.

I know it sounds weird now because Dark Confidant is such a staple and such an amazing card in our eyes. But when he was first printed he was being laughed at...who would want to kill themselves to draw cards. Like I said we didn't have access to a lot of cards that make Bob good now, and the same is entirely possible with Duskmantle Seer.

Well, Necropotence and the oft-played Phyrexian Arena had a "fair" exchange of 1 life = 1 card.

When bob was spoiled, people avoided him because of his high variance. Yes, drawing cards is awesome, but people were fearful of flipping shit like kokusho and taking 6 against aggressive opponents. Sensei's Divining top was a thing, but for whatever reason it wasn't that huge in standard by the time Ravnica was out.

Eventually people realized that all the extra cards means you probably don't even need threats that cost 6. Especially not in the Jitte format.

Even after people realized his value, he was never the chase rare when Ravnica was new, the shocks were. He was a solid role-player, but not an omnipresent threat like Jitte, Cryptic Command, Delver etc. In fact, the only deck that really stands out in my mind as a 4x Dark Confidant deck was hand-in-hand, and I only remember that because it was probably my favorite standard deck I've ever played.

Yes but what I am saying is the same thing between lightning bolt and searing spear... Lightning Bolt is clearly better and there would be no point in running Searing Spear. Also would phyrexian Arena also be just better in Modern? Unless we are just talking standard.

They way I've seen it explained is thus: Duskmantle Seer is not Dark Confidant, and comparisans to Bob are a little unfair. Seer does not provide card advantage, but he does present a formidable, evasive body. On top of that, he gives you information (about what he lets your opponent draw), and he deals damage outside of the attack step. Seer could be amazing in the right deck, probably some sort of mid-range or tempo deck. But right now, just after the release of Gatecrash, he sucks. Standard is too aggro for him to fit in anywhere, and the lifeloss Seer causes could potentially put you in burn range from red-based aggro decks, which is not a good place to be.

Think of it this way. Upkeep hits. They reveal something like Terminus. Whoops. Looks like you lose six life and don't even get to miracle play that spell. Sorry bro, it says put it into your hand, not draw it.

Edit: Think about combining him with Delver and some other form of deck manipulation. You could stack Delver's trigger first so you'd have a chance to see what your card would be and then respond accordingly.

It hardly shits on miracles though, the chances of them actually revealing a miracle are just as good as them drawing it on their turn without the use of dimir charm, and even then it just adds a card to their hand for them to cast later. I'm not saying its a bad card, but it has very few serious applications in the current standard environment.

EDIT: were you refering to the miracles deck, or just the mechanic? I should have clarified that before :P

If you play first, most midrange decks are still running ramp, so they'll have 5 mana up by the time your "shit on you" card actually hits. Against aggro decks, all you're doing is drawing them more cards.

If you're smart you stunt their ramp. For some reason people don't do this. Is there some sort of unwritten code about countering ramp spells and burning dorks that I'm not aware of? It has seriously never been that big of a problem for me.

Miracles can be cast at instant speed for their miracle costs, man. Otherwise they'd be entirely pointless.

Like ANY powerful black card it is high risk high reward. The key is to play him as your highest CMC card. That way you don't end up killing yourself. He's super deadly in Esper colors when you pair him with shit like Lingering Souls and Daggerdrome Imps. It has served me well and more than likely will continue to do so.

As for Thragtusk not being the right creature....totally disagree. I've had people reveal him with Duskmantle Seer. That's 5 lost life right there with a 4/4 flier bearing down on you as well. Pretty imposing and usually game winning in my experience. Imagine how dumb you'd feel when getting your precious thragfag kills you. It will happen some day.

i think what people are failing to realize is the Jace effect. Jace the mindsculptor is arguably the most powerful standalone card they have ever printed, when it was spoiled i think it was preselling for 20 dollars. Nobody bought in on that, and now it is worth $100, and was worth more during cawblade season. This has had a direct effect on every planeswalker printed since, both in terms of how stores pre-sell planeswalkers and at what price they are valued at, as well as how people now snap pre buy 4 of every planeswalker because "JUST IN CASE".

The same thing is happening here with seer, and people are commenting on it, but not the whole thing. When bob came out, people didnt realize how good it was, now everyone knows and its a "good" card and worth many dollars. This affected dusk mantle seer early, when he was a case mythic (many LGS' store the big movers and shakers in the case, so that people see them and want to buy them) early after he was spoiled/the set printed, he was worth more and there were people that were convinced he was the next bob. Now hes down to 2-5 dollars because he currently doesnt have a home.

Again, the bob factor, so people are saying "WELL THIS HAPPENED WITH BOB A LONG TIME AGO SO THIS WILL HAPPEN WITH SEER" which is a possibility, but people need to realize that seer is not even close to bob on power level. Giving your opponents cards is NEVER GOOD, and it is not a "minor" downside, like some people are alluding to. That is a big downside.

Do i think seer will ever be good? No i dont, but that doesnt mean that he wont be. There are many many many factors to a card being good/expensive (look at aurelias fury), too many to get into. I just wanted to mention something that i thought people were very close to saying, but were just missing a small portion.

also i tried to read more of the comments, but its all just "maybe this" and "bob that" and then a bunch of "but if i do this then i 9 you" and arguments that arent really helpful. The truth is that reddit isnt the best place to find out answers to questions like this, because they are almost all opinions (including this one). Just trying to read the comments i had to stop myself from getting into arguments with the "best case scenario" guys over duskmantle seer. The bottom line is, no matter how many people tell you a reason why duskmantle seer MIGHT BE GOOD SOMEDAY because XYZ, and how many people tell you the exact opposite, none of them are right until it happens. SO for now, he's a 4 dollar rare, with a high foil price, because places like SCG know that people will pay 14 dollars for a foil for a couple of reasons: they think he is the next bob, so SCG can rake them, they play EDH, where a card like this is arguably better than in any other format, and SCG can rake them because EDH players like to pimp their ride.

anyway, i just wanted to clarify, most if not all of what you are going to get with questions like these on websites like reddit are opinions, most of which are not based on fact or experience. I recommend playing with him and seeing what you think. If you notice that you can build a deck that rapes with him, then by all means, exploit him now being at $4, if you find that giving your opponents more cards to kill you with is bad, sell/stash him and be happy that he was only $4 and not $20 pre ordered.

For a bit of perspective. Olivia and Falkenrath Aristocrat were $4 mythics at one point. If we were to see some good counterspells and killspells printed, I could see Duskmantle being playable in a blue/black based control or tempo deck, so there is always the potential.

That's what I'm doing with the rest of my dustkmantle seers, I traded a couple right away at $13 for shocklands which seemed good then, and now, seeing how much he dropped. If you can't get such a good deal I see no reason to get rid of him for 4 bucks.

Except that it isn't likely going to become a staple. It's up to you, really; the card holding $4.50 value means that if it does manage to fall much further, then you aren't exactly out a large value. That being said, if you are holding it purely on the prediction that it's going to rise significantly in value, let me be the first to tell you that it isn't likely. Duskmantle Seer is a card that seems really appealing when you first read it, but its effect isn't good enough to justify it over several other four to five mana creatures. Standard is currently a very creature-heavy format, so there is a lot of competition for Duskmantle Seer. It has bad color typing for what it does, and doesn't impact the board enough on the turn that it's played.

You can argue that it will not just as much as you can that it will. It's purely speculative, so you have to take comments such as this with a grain of salt, but I do not believe whatsoever that Duskmantle Seer will ever become a format staple.

He's fairly costed. Four mana for a 4/4 flier is fine. It's nice that 2 of it (a magic number in Legacy) is colorless.

He's a Vampire and a Wizard. These are minor benefits, but, you know, he's on track to randomly slot into tribal decks.

He's fairly big. 5 turn clock that's immune to a lot of red removal being played right now is great.

He draws you cards. In a deck where Seer tops the curve, you're likely to be losing very little life every turn to him, and seeing a lot more cards than you would otherwise.

He draws your opponents cards, which is bad, on your upkeep, which is great. Really great. Beyond great. Not only are the vast majority of the cards they draw not likely to be even usable when they draw them, but you're the one that just untapped and can take advantage of the extra card first.

He costs your opponents life. Likely similar life to what he costs you, but occasionally a lot more.

So no, he's not as good as Dark Confidant. He's too expensive to be really amazing in eternal formats or Modern or whatever, he's symmetrical so there's potential for your opponent to gain more advantage from him than you, etc. But he's still really good. I would guess that there just aren't any decks that want a creature in that CC slot with that particular effect...currently.

Some of the strongest cards in Magic are symmetrical effects: Wrath of God, Sulfuric Vortex, Pernicious Deed, Chalice of the Void, etc. Symmetrical effects can be much stronger and more cheaply costed because they supposedly effect both players equally.

Seer could be really good in the right deck and right meta. Like $30 good. However, it's all conjecture.

while these are printed symetrical effects, they arent played symetrical effects. You play them in your deck so that you can exploit them. No one plays bob in a deck with emrakul, or 10 8 drops, nobody whos any good at deckbuilding anyway...

yes and no. What i am saying is that despite that, this card is still "bad" or worse or unplayable, or whatever level of "not as good as X" you prefer because it gives your opponents cards, that they can kill you with.

Think of all the people you have played against, that whined about "if i just had one more X, or if i'd draw Y", now imagine that YOU gave them that out. They are saying the most played/good/powerful cards are symetrical, but not saying why, and not explaining that they are still worse than a card that is the exact same thing (or close) but is asymetrical.

Imagine how bad jace/stoneforge/hymm/revelation/bolt/recall etc would be if they were symetrical?

Of course asymmetrical effects are better than symmetrical abilities. Compare Plague Wind to Damnation. Plague Wind's effect is better, but no one's going to wait for 9 mana to cast it. The power of the listed symmetrical cards come from the discounted cost, and the effect you can play around or exploit.

right, but in this case (as well as most of the ones i mentioned before) the asymmetrical cost/card is actually less. In short, in my opinion, which you can take for what you will, dusk mantle seer is not worth playing because it gives your opponents many outs, and i prefer not to help my opponents beat me.

Still, this card can fill a different role than Bob. This guy is a 3-4 turn clock. His ability is good for you because none of your cards are expensive, but he can be a real pain for your opponent whose deck contains expensive cards.

He's good in a deck built with him in mind. If everything in yours is cheap, the cost of life is going to be minimal compared to the awesome card adventage. Your opponent didn't build his deck around the effect though, so it's fairly likely he is going to take a lot more damage from it. And either way it goes, you have a large flier on the table.

Heh, well, if the strategy is to use blue to protect one important creature, then you're better off building a geist of saint traft deck. :)

The other problem is you need to get their life below yours when duskmantle starts flipping cards for damage. With naya and jund aggro, that's near impossible to do. The duskmantle aggro decks actually fully sideboard out duskmantle for aggro decks.

If you are running a deck that has him, you would not have more than 3 in the deck. If one is already on your field, what are the chances that you flip one on that turn? Lets say you have 49-50 cards, assuming you slammed it turn 4, the chance of you hitting another one off the top is 2/49 or 2/50 respectively. That is about a 4% chance. Now compare that to what your opponent might have in his deck. Is he running Thragtusks? Thundermaws? Resto angels? Olivias? Supreme verdicts? How many 4 or higher costed cards are your opponents running? Now compare that to yourself. The chance of them lava axing themselves is much much higher than you burning yourself out. In the event they flip a thragtusk, and can theoretically play it the next turn, you can deal a potential 9 damage from duskmantle alone this turn. You also lava axed them while spending no mana. Its a situation where it is very hard for you not to come out ahead or even outright win this turn. Also keep in mind that although you both get a card off his effect, you get the extra cards on YOUR turn. You get to use it first before he does. Its not complete symmetry.

On the flip side, they just took 4 and you have a flier that wins in combat against resto. I've been playing duskmantle seer decks a lot lately and resto is never the issue. They can block using resto and then burn the seer out but then its a 2 for 1 on your end. Thragtusks are annoying to deal with since theres no way to not get 2-for-1ed by it.

but at least they took five for drawing tusk, negating the life gain for playing it. don't get me wrong, i very much appreciate the potential this card has and have tried several standard decks to get the seer going, but i havent found the one yet. it's completely possible he'll find a decent home before he rotates.

He is a mythic rare so part of it is based on low supply. If it were a regular rare, it would be valued at about 25% of that, give or take.
Also, he is a four mana creature that has a very relevant ability. Although you have to be a bit cautious with the decks you build with him, he can still be an important piece in several different types of decks.

And unlike howling mine, it gives you a slight advantage in the effect rather than vice versa (the only thing that kept howling mine from really ever being good in Standard throughout the past decade.)

I think the best analysis I've seen of Duskmantle Seer comes from Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa here.

Here's the highlight that probably answers your question best:

The important thing to notice here is that you know you have Duskmantle Seer in your deck, so you can build around it, but your opponent does not. There are many decks that do not play Dark Confidant when they theoretically could, because they’re not interested in this kind of effect. There are many decks against which you side out Dark Confidant, because it’s a liability.

If you can produce a deck against which people would side out Dark Confidant, and manage to play against a deck that would not even want Dark Confidant to begin with, then that is where Duskmantle Seer reaches its peak.

He then goes on to analyze the environmental problems that could potentially hold it back and discuss potential decks that might want to play it. Basically, you should read the article.

Vexing devil just sees marginal play in legacy burn. It does see plenty of play in modern burn, but legacy would rather play Fireblast, Sulfuric Vortex, Price of Progress, Chain Lightning, etc. And all the other creatures are already 1-drops in legacy - goblin guide and grim lavamancer - since vexing devil is only really good T1, the creatures get in the way of each other.

If that card was printed in Innistrad Block it would be a $25+ card. Being able to draw your little aggressive/tempo cards while punishing your opponent for playing things like Thragtusk is awesome. And of course a 4/4 with evasion does a nice job finishing too. A delver deck would love to have him.

However in today's meta it isn't the same. There is no delver deck or any real aggressive deck in his colors that could benefit from him. At the same time imagine playing him against a deck like Naya Blitz. You would straight up crumble after allowing him to draw a pair of Flinthoof Boars on the same turn while you are taking your own damage from your reveals.

I could see him working in an aggressive BUG deck sometime within the next year or so, especially to help finish off midrange decks (the decks aggro struggle with). In the current meta however, he just doesn't fit anywhere well enough to be played heavily enough to be an expensive card. This doesn't mean people won't try it or even speculate on them hoping the price will go up.

I was joking about playing him as SB tech in BUG control against Sneak and Show... Just bring in this guy and laugh as your opponents flips Emrakuls and Griselbrands... But the downside is he costs 4 mana and he could just cause you to lose the game by drawing your opponent cards when he is playing combo

Many seems to stop thinking at that point they understand that Seer is symmetrical.

As other symmetrical effects, your advantage in that case is that you choose when to play it, and it needs a deck based around it. In an aggro deck, on turn 5 with the upkeep damage and his attack, your goal is to finish off the opponent. The card is drawn for both players during your upkeep. So he gives us some more juice before your opponent gets to play the card unless it's an instant. That actually makes the effect slightly not symmetrical too.

I think the card works but it has no deck at the moment. at 4 mana, there are better aggro options.. and even more important, it's also not in the aggro colors of the moment.

I have tested him in cube, and can confirm a few things about how he plays.
1. 4/4 flyer for 4 is pretty sweet almost all of the time.
2. Not every deck wants to draw cards this badly.
3. Many decks you play against will really dislike the clock he puts people on. We've noticed him to be roughly a 2-3 turn clock assuming a reasonable start to the game came before him.
He's big, got evasion, got a sneaky form of reach, and can helps you reload. Not good all of the time, but very good in his way.

There is a Grixis Delver deck that had moderate success on MTGO with him, causing him to spike temporarily. I think it was at that point that some speculators realized that the card was in fact playable and had pretty much hit the floor.

He costs what he does because he's a mythic. That being said, he's essentially a junk mythic that sees no constructed play.

But being a mythic, people will always be willing to pay at least $2 because if he randomly starts seeing constructed play, he'll shoot up to $40.

Think about it like this . . . Falkenrath Aristocrat was essentially $4 mythic like Duskmantle Seer. Because Falkenrath Aristocrat saw no play outside of Innistrad block constructed. But when Scars of Mirrodin rotated, the zombies deck changed from being a tempo-based sacrifice deck with Blood Artists and Mortarpods . . . to being just an all-out aggro deck which could really use a hasty flying sac-outlet for 4 mana. And Falkenrath Aristocrat shot up to $20.